Hey Everyone. Hope you all enjoyed this weeks Polkadots Adventure Activity. If you haven’t seen it yet check out my girls Caydence, Camryn and I on our Nature Obstacle Course on the Polkadots Adventure page.
So lately the girls and I have been feeling rather ADVENTUROUS! Doing obstacle courses has become apart of our daily routine and over time they have begun to evolve. We started doing mini imaginary obstacle courses in the lounge in front of the TV while listening to The Polkadots ” Jump, Shuffle, Jump” song. The girls soon mastered the indoor course and decided it was time to venture outdoors. Wed round up broken tree branches, wooden logs, buckets and chairs and lay them out in a sequence. Then we would run through our backyard obstacles, singing out favourite Polkadots song…
” Jump up and down, up, up and down, foward and back foward and back” The girls would sing as they jumped over the broken tree branch.
“Can you balance on a log, count 1, 2, 3″ they would sing as they crossed their wooden plank.
“Can you climb the highest tree, look what you can see.” They would sing as they imagined their bucket was a giant tree. And . . . “Crawl through a tunnel, shuffle, shuffle” They would sing as they imagined the deck chair was a tiny tunnel.
The girls would race through our imaginary finish line as if they were the winners of an Olympic Race, throwing their hands in the air, laughing and giggling, their confidence growing and growing each time they took up the obstacle challenge.
So now we’ve mastered the indoor imaginary obstacles, we’ve conquered the outdoor “Jump, Shuffle, Jump” obstacles and as you would have seen on the adventure clip we’ve had lots of fun exploring our Nature obstacle course. Caydence and Camryn have definitely become quite familiar with all of these challenges and are now coming up with their own new, exciting and more challenging courses that are literally reaching new heights, and quite possibly starting to enter into the EXTREME category of toddler obstacle courses.
Sarah and Camryn had a great time on their obstacle course
Yesterday The Polkadots got to do a little show for the holiday programme children at YouthTown and with the inspiration from our little activity on Monday we decided to make one of our songs called “Healthy Me” a little more practical!
The song “Healthy Me” (from the Body Bop album) teaches us all about the foods we should and shouldn’t eat. So we decided to get the children to help us sort out some food into categories of “Eat Lots” “Eat Some” and “Eat as a Treat”. The children were really good at putting the foods into their correct pile! If they weren’t too sure we talked quickly about what it was made of and why it was good or bad for our bodies!
This activity was a good reminder for us too as we all try and get back into shape after Christmas! ;o)
All the children from the YouthTown Holiday Programme
Yes! it’s time for the green Polkadot to do some blogging this week! How exciting! As I was lying in bed this morning thinking about Brooklyn and what her interests were, one of the first things that popped to mind was food!
The morning routine went as usual but when we were in Brooklyn’s room to get her dressed, she spotted something poking out behind the shelf. It just happened to be . . . a Food Chart! It was a present for her 1st birthday from her very health-conscious Nanny wanting to pass on her wisdom! Using her manners (and in a most insistent tone) Brooklyn repeated “Eeese! EEEase!” She finally managed to pull out the chart. I was quickly lead to the lounge while a very excited Brooklyn placed the chart down and started to point to the images.
I thought it would be best to tell Brooklyn “We can eat lots of these foods because they are good for our bodies and very yummy!” She put her head down to the fruit and started making little munching noises. Too Cute! Then we named and pointed to each fruit and vegetable. It was so adorable to hear her repeat each name because every word had about 10 syllables! Sometimes there was a little story for each fruit we pointed to. (I’m loving this stage!) The fruit she best pronounced was her favourite fruit of all time ‘naana’.
However, pointing to pictures just wasn’t enough for Brooklyn. So we thought it would be best to take things a step further and actually taste the fruit. There’s nothing like the real thing! So I brought out some strawberries, a banana, and half an apple. She was happy to chomp on her banana as we named them all again. She got quite good at identifying each fruit on the chart when getting her to point to them.
Brookie looking at the Fruit and Vege Chart
Learning the proper names of her fruits and vegetables as well as tasting the real thing, Brooklyn had the opportunity to start recognising healthy foods. The younger she can start learning about healthy food, the more likely she will be to practise a healthy lifestyle later on in life! And don’t we all want healthy children? 
Ashton’s Animal Stretches
As The Polkadots we have just decided to start doing weekly adventures with our children in video format to share with The Polkadots community. Ashton and I were first up, we planned to go on a sensory walk but the weather changed our plans and we ended up doing Animal Stretches with the Animal Stretch song from Body Bop and also with a book I found on Ashton’s book shelf called “Toddlerobics” by Zita Newcome.
Although Ashton is only 12 weeks old at the moment, I have been waiting a long time to go on adventures with my own child, so I didn’t want this to hold me back! He is just as responsive to our adventures as my 4 year old niece is… just in a different way. When we got his animals out to do the stretching activities with, he got all excited and kept pulling them up to give them a hug and a kiss… (I call it a kiss, but really he just wants to put it in his mouth like everything else!)
By starting young Ashton and I get into the habit and skill of exploring our world! Making time for learning moments and quality time together. I have tried to do this with him right from when he was a couple of weeks old and I look forward to this time with him each day… and each day he is responding more and more!
TO WATCH OUR LATEST ADVENTURE VIDEO… CLICK HERE
Ashton playing with Max Monkey after we did the Animal Stretches
